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Information Lifecycle Management

Manage Your Information Lifecycle with Metal Toad

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) represents a transformational shift in creating and managing data, as well as the storage infrastructure built to support it. As all data within storage networks has a defined lifecycle, ILM looks into the way information travels through an organization from its inception to its eventual archiving and removal.

Throughout the entire information lifecycle, ensuring that data is online and available whenever needed by end users is imperative for your information managers. But as any administrator will tell you, not all data is created equal, and the information important in today’s business operations may be irrelevant tomorrow.

and the costs of private data storage for organizations is expected to climb well into the future.

The Four Steps of ILM

The exact steps in data lifecycles depends on your organization’s specific needs and organizational policies; however, there are typically four stages through which data travels – data creation, data publication, and data retention, and data disposal.

Metal Toad has enterprise-level experience in all four stages of ILM.

Data creation is either user-created or acquired via faxes, emails, and other digital assets. At this primary stage, both data availability and data value are high.

Data publication, though often in print form, needs to be accessed through your intranet(s) or public websites. The value and availability requirements of published data often depend on the content of that data’s importance to your organization.

Data retention has a clear value. It is calculated from the length of time an organization archives and retains information. This is due to the fact that the nature of your data may be governed by increasing federal regulations, standards, and compliance measures in place that call out how long certain types of data are to be kept.